


an important scene, acted in stone for little selves

by TolkienGirl



Series: All That Glitters Gold Rush!AU: The Full Series [270]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Celegorm is angsty, Gen, Post-Chapter 4 of someone who no longer is, and deserves better, but also makes things worse, title from a poem by William E. Stafford
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:41:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25311745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienGirl/pseuds/TolkienGirl
Summary: “They’ll never trust us,” Curufin said, setting in. He always set in. “Not as men. Children to be scolded and shuffled into corners, yes. Or—maybe. Maybe Fingon will be content to let Maedhros’ idiot brother carry him on his back when the time comes for him to be moved or buried.”“Maedhros isn’t going to die.” But Celegorm was a fool; he sounded like a fool.
Relationships: Celegorm | Turcafinwë & Curufin | Curufinwë, Celegorm | Turcafinwë & Huan, Celegorm | Turcafinwë & Maedhros | Maitimo, Celegorm | Turcafinwë & Original Character(s)
Series: All That Glitters Gold Rush!AU: The Full Series [270]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1300685
Kudos: 12





	an important scene, acted in stone for little selves

“You ought to mind your brats,” he said. Stopped short of shaking a finger in her face, because it wasn’t she who had done the harm. She blinked at him out of her one eye, her hands crumpling cloth in her lap, her body otherwise still.

She was a mercy in that she did not make him think of other women.

He reckoned, though, that the mercy of her ruined face wasn’t a mercy to her.

Celegorm wondered what Maitimo had seen in her, at first. The Maitimo that _had been_ had held a keen appreciation for beauty, symmetry, strength. Being faced with that sort of ugliness must have been repulsive.

Still, Gwindor swore she’d been kind, and Maitimo’s mood would have been tempered by his own state. When had they beaten him? When had they branded him?

Celegorm harbored a horror of branding greater than his fear of most things. Blood was nothing to him; nothing at all. Burns were both too slow and too final. Something like the rapidity of decay. Set the teeth on edge. Even in childhood, he had hated the touch of hot irons in the abstract, hated it in sympathy with cattle and horses and other creatures as bore marks like that.

 _You ought to mind your brats_ , he had said, just now, saving life and skin whether Estrela knew it or not. Curufin feared no fire. His flame was intended to have gruesome effects.

(Celegorm had once seen his brother burn himself—quite faintly—to prove a point.)

(Maitimo, not Curufin.)

“Celegorm—have Sticks and Frog caused you trouble?” Estrela asked, now, and he still felt strange, hearing her know his name.

“Sticks nearly blasted herself to bits,” he said. Curufin wanted the devices kept secret from the newcomers, but Celegorm didn’t see a way around this. Estrela was alone for the moment; that was why he’d chosen to speak to her now. The native woman that came with Fingolfin’s company had stepped away just before he’d approached. He was avoiding Aredhel, too. “There’s landmines buried in the border by the hill and down at the edge of the field. You’d better warn the littler one, too. Seems like he’s always poking.”

She nodded, solemn. “Yes.”

“Better yet, keep ‘em inside the fort.”

She didn’t argue. She thanked him. It made Celegorm ache.

Duty done—and it wasn’t a duty, it was him being goddamn gracious Samaritan, trudging along some ancient road—he left. Hightailed it back to the only quarters he could stomach at present.

His boots were heavy on his feet, his coat heavy on his shoulders. Heavy, too, was the memory of loud insults rightfully directed at Fingon, wrongfully falling on Maitimo.

He clenched his jaw, his joints. Sleep would do him good. Would let him forget, maybe, what he’d give for ease in returning, for a night of relative discomfort on the bench he’d stolen from the yard—

Oh, that had been victory, at least. Fingon had been right chaffed over that. Damn him.

He had kept out of doors after depositing Sticks in her rightful place, and only now that half the fort was trading news of their doldrum days over the second round of supper did Celegorm step into the corridor, from which all rooms sprang forth.

He himself had eaten with only Huan for company. A bowl balanced on his knees; the sky painted black.

 _I’m so tired,_ he said, not with words, but with his fingers laced in Huan’s fur.

The air had tasted of smoke, and cold water. So it was in California, in December. Celegorm knew with all the certainty that a vague future could offer, that he was likely to die in this world.

He hoped it would be at night, and on an open plain. 

Mithrim’s quarters had been cramped since well before the arrival of Fingolfin and his merry band. Its original occupants, who knew as well as Celegorm did where Curufin’s mines were buried, went hunting, scouting, and trapping, to be sure. But they went cautiously—knowing that the grey-clad regiments of orcs were on orders to look out for trouble.

They did not often venture out to the town.

Mithrim, to the outside world, meant trouble. And since Ulfang’s death…since before then, really, there had been trouble inside, too.

The half-wit half-kin, of course, could not be expected to know this. Funny to think that they likely didn’t know much of the railroad, either, unless by _they_ one really meant Gwindor or Estrela or the children, since they were the slaves who had worked on its making.

Now he was thinking about those damned brats again. Brats his brother loved.

(Maitimo hadn’t minded the blade. Hadn’t touched it, exactly. But then, he didn’t touch anything these days. He had followed Celegorm’s demonstrations with his eyes, and he had asked questions.

A good sign, Maitimo asking questions. A sign of ordinary things.)

There was but one candle burning in the bedroom that his brothers shared. Caranthir and Amras were not accounted for. He did not look for Maglor, here. Huan came in beside him and sank to the floor with a sigh.

Curufin was sitting on the smaller of the two beds, a body in profile: his arms thrust straight behind him, his chin tilted down. He was not dressed for sleeping, but of course, Celegorm reminded himself, it was early yet.

“You’ve been rather absent,” said Curufin, without turning his head.

“Where did you want me?”

“No matter. Maedhros awake? Talking?”

As blankly as he could: “Last I knew.”

“You weren’t with him, then.”

“The deer don’t mince up on the table, Curufin. Someone has to go out and shoot them.”

Curufin sniffed. That passed for a laugh, sometimes, from him. “How many?”

“What?”

“How many deer?”

Celegorm’s head ached. “None. I was unlucky.” Fingon’s voice—Fingon's hatred—Maedhros calling Fingon’s name—

There was so much that Fingon could never see in them. 

“I heard shouting.” Curufin spoke low. “From the sickroom. I was…close by.” It was unusual for him to be the one choosing his words with obvious care; with, perhaps, a fear of offending.

In Celegorm’s experience, Curufin always knew just what to say.

“Fingon’s an ass. Didn’t think I needed to remind you of that.”

“You don’t.”

“I’m dog-tired,” Celegorm said, not wanting to talk about Fingon. Huan heard _dog_ and whined, interested. “Leave the lectures for morning, eh?”

“No lecture,” Curufin said. He drew himself out of that strange, stiff pose and stood up. “If you’re bent on embarrassing yourself, what good will a lecture do?”

Celegorm shucked his coat off. His boots.

“They’ll never trust us,” Curufin said, setting in. He always set in. “Not as men. Children to be scolded and shuffled into corners, yes. Or—maybe. _Maybe_ Fingon will be content to let Maedhros’ idiot brother carry him on his back when the time comes for him to be moved or buried.”

“Maedhros isn’t going to die.” But Celegorm was a fool; he sounded like a fool.

“He wants to.” Curufin paced. He looked like Athair; he looked nothing like Athair. It was all a trick of light.

And his words were all a trick of darkness, but Celegorm was blinded by the black sky of their future. He couldn’t _see_.

“You’ve seen it,” Curufin said, an eerie echo of mockery for that internal sensation. “Seen the look in his eyes. They don’t love him like we do, Celegorm. They can’t. And they sure as hell don’t love us. It’s why they don’t want to see us grow old. Children, or dead children, are better than living men to fight them. Fingolfin and Fingon would rather grieve than disagree. It’s why they’ve forgiven us so quickly. They see an end in sight.”

The bed was near. Sleep, perhaps less so, but Celegorm knew only one way to end this conversation. Argument wouldn’t do it; Curufin was too skilled for him. Celegorm stretched out atop the blankets and threw an arm over his eyes.

Only when he heard the latch lift did he speak.

“Where are you going?”

“To the mine,” said Curufin.


End file.
